What Kind of Crazy
by tami3
Summary: Involves Lavi's life philosophy, Allen having issues with Cross's undeniable sexiness, Lenalee having a better grip on XXX stuff than Allen, and Kanda getting some mediocre action. Warning: sexy stuff within. LaviAllen


-1Warnings: Borderline abusive Cross, sex scenes, language, warped and inaccurate representations of political ideologies and psychology, etc.

What Kind of Crazy

Prologue: Political Theories (Spring, so it's warm enough to go to war)

Lavi is a restless genius of everything, and Allen kind of admires him for it. But Allen thinks, that can't be the (his) sole definition of Lavi. Allen doesn't have the right kind of a relationship with him for that to be true--that is, the kind where one idolizes a visionary, because real brains always come with a vision. Big, ambitious plans for marching mankind down the path of progress. The right words to sell them.

One-rung-down on the ladder of thinkers and doers scrambling to be part of the mastermind's magnum opus, that's--theoretically--where Allen should be. Infatuated with a reality someone else made up and might-just-be/might-just-come true. Hey, why not, it's all the rage nowadays. Kant, Marx, Smith. Lavi tells him about them, like what they have right and what they have wrong. So for him, stuck in a religious compound and otherwise isolated from all that secular socio-political nonsense…whatever Lavi thinks.

"Boy, what are you thinking?" Lavi laughs himself stupid when Allen broaches this to him, timidly. Not in so much humiliating, "you-might just-be-my-god-on-earth" sentiments. More like, as playfully mean as he can force out. "Lavi, the way you talk, you could take over the world if you wanted too." (Because if normal people can smell desperation, why wouldn't it stink to those who (seemingly) have people all figured out?)

"Oh, Allen." he sighs. And it always (Jesus, without fai1) sends a crawly itchy tingle down his spine when Lavi attaches that sigh to his name. (_"Oh, Allen, you're so cute. Oh, Allen, you're so silly. Oh Allen, I can condescend to you all I want, because you love me too much to talk back. Oh Allen, that's what I love about you.) _Oh, Allen. Allen, Allen. Get a grip. You're so exasperating.

"Allen, I'd need an ego to do that. I may have all these ideas, but that's all they are--ideas. Words. I don't want them to come true. Or have people care about them. I know what I think won't do anyone any good."

He's got such a breezy, unconcerned laugh over himself that he shames Allen. ("That's not true! Even what I think, about saving humans and akuma, I think that's worth something." he hears himself feebly fumbling along on a protest. Because, hey, even he thinks he could do some good…and he's not nearly as smart as Lavi, so…Not that he actually says it.)

"Then why do you tell me all this stuff?" is what he comes up with instead. (Does he sound as if he is complaining? Like a pleb whose head hurts from too much smarts? Is he tedious yet?)

"We-eelll. Maybe I just like having someone to talk to." Lavi excuses himself with charm and a wicked twinkle in his eye. But after making a big show of scanning the room, Lavi beckons him close with two crooked fingers. For a conspiracy, he whispers as soon as his lips flutter against the stick-out hairs by Allen's ear.

"Indifference." and the multi-syllable thing hisses singsong in his ear. Three plus rushes of warm breath dampening his skin. "That's how I'd change the world. I'd make everyone stop caring. We're all crazy because we _care_."

And he retracts himself. "But I'm not the Earl." Lavi continues in conversational tones, which makes no sense because he's not safe yet. He gets some funny looks from the other library patrons. "Love, hate, fuck. Everyone does. You will too. What do I care? (Hey, I'm already cured!) If it's going to happen anyways, I might as well watch."

Allen's pretty sure he has a prepared speech to battle such cynicism (Would he be busting his ass for this world if he didn't have some philosophy about it _not_ being worthless?)

But what occurs to him is "_Want to join me?"_

The Story: Freudian Psychoanalysis (Sometime in winter, when everyone's bored and horny.)

Allen bolts upright from a nightmare/wet dream of Marian Cross and Lavi having wild, obscene sex. Hot tongues sliding wetly, bodies writhing enthusiastically, bright red hair tangling with bright red hair. The works. ("Oh master." Lavi moans wantonly into Cross's mouth. "Oh master, master, master…")

Which makes no sense and is downright freaky, because Allen's the only one who calls Cross Marian that. It doesn't sweeten the sour taste in Allen's mouth that imaginary-Lavi's cries of lust are overlaid with the real memory of still-drunk-in-the-morning taunts that accompanied Allen's struggle to get a handle on his maturing body.

("Heyyy, kitty kitty. Is kitty in heat? Huh? Kitty in heat?" the raucous morning laughs drifted into his burning adolescent ears. He'd struggle to unstick himself from the sheets to shut that voice up, but it'd always end up with him getting goosed by Cross, or worse yet, Maria.)

"Hmmm" Lavi purrs thoughtfully (not provocatively) at Allen's dream description (with Lavi's name omitted, obviously. The story's cobbled together with phrases like "my master" and "…someone's face that I can't make out"). Nothing weird about it, Lavi's the go-to guy for things like this because he knows things People and their temporary unconscious insanities things. And for cripes' sake, they're all at that age, it's nothing to be embarrassed about.

( Lenalee's soft, wispy, wistfulness is a stunner that leaves grown men catatonic at her ankles. "Hey Lavi," she says. "What does it mean when I dream about big brother Komui kissing Rhode Kamelot?" She's asking in her most lovable "I-want-a-big-sister-mommy" voice so Lavi has that analyzed and squared away in seconds.)

"Give me some info" Lavi requests, because this is a more twisted nut to set straight. ("Allen, mixed metaphors are bad for you." Lavi had admonished him during FYI mode.)

So Allen tells him about how it was always one girl after another with Cross. Doubtlessly it'd be someone who was "truly, hopelessly, honestly" and whatever more "ly's" it took to say that she was _sadly_ in love with his "guardian". _("So don't feel threatened pet, it was just meant to be and all that changes is that you've got two guardians instead of one!") _And Cross would grin a sadistic "sure thing, honey" and shoot a wink at Allen's stony little face before ushering the bundle of giggles and boobs behind locked doors. Immediate thumping and gasping, follow-up sobs, and ultimate mad scrambles through the town gates would ensue.

But he can't leave out the smirky boys Cross sometimes brought back to the hotel room, complete with their made-up eyes and unspoken "I'm prettier than you"s crawling in Allen's brain space like unwanted parasites. And hell, throw in a few smug implied "Probably younger, too"s and Allen would be left gaping as Cross petted him, scuffed him, and tossed him out. (One time he'd heard a high-and-mighty high-voiced scoff, "Your kept boy always get this jealous?" and Cross had answered "Oh yeah. He's infatuated with me." Allen'd chucked his shoe down the lobby to the soundtrack of two guys laughing.)

"Keep talking." Lavi coaxes him. (Which Allen knows by now really means "Bah, useless. Give me something really meaty to pick apart.") "Tell me…" Lavi trails off in dramatic contemplation "..about who Cross really loved."

_Lavi, were you listening? My master was a whore. Like, a whore's whore. He fucked (with) people as a profession. He didn't love. He loved whoring._

…which is exactly what Allen bites back because he's a good kid whose childhood abuse was all about money. Simple and clean. Pure and cold. Money. He's someone who slaved for that money and handed all of it over to pay for his master's whores, yes, but also saw neither hide nor hair of the streetwalkers after his cash disappeared down their blouses. He was a non-voyeur, non-butt-boy kind of bitch. Cross's bitch of renewable funds, that's who Allen was. And that's the truth.

But Lavi's "I'm-paying-total-attention-to-you" look warrants a _oh go ahead and squint if you really have to_. So Allen says "Master loved the Madam."

The Madam was a sharp-tongued, no-nonsense Chinese lady that might have well been the sexually active reincarnation of Bhudda. Utter composure. Beauty like the sacred lotus. She sold her girls as little goddesses: rich clothes, mysterious airs. In no time clients weren't clients but hooked acolytes, turning out pockets for offerings to their new idols. But Cross was adept at keeping goddesses under his thumb. He had one in a coffin he kept for a pet, for one thing.

("Ai, Mr.Cross, you are a hard customer to please," the Madam would complain serenely when another one of her workers would wobble sweaty, incoherent, and nothing but silly human girl out of his quarters. "Try Mei-Ling, then. On the house." And when Cross wasn't looking, she would wink at Allen.)

Had Cross really loved the Madam? Probably. They had stayed with her for more than a year. And if Allen can remember right, Cross never wrung one tear out of her or stole anything from her that she couldn't spare. ("Go on, take it!" she'd said when she found out Cross had pawned one of the priceless pure gold peacocks that sat on every table. "Take the rest! I am ashamed to have such cheap, tacky things in my house!" She had caught Allen's eye with a smile and given the slightest jerk of her head in Cross's direction.)

"Aaaahhhh." Lavi sympathizes. Allen awaits his diagnosis, hoping it's something like _"Well Allen, the problem is that you need to get together with your own special someone who's always pretended to not feel like that towards you but will throw away his _(her, Allen corrects himself mentally) _principles and rip your pants off when you threaten to sail away to another country . Let's get started, shall we?"_

"It sounds like you have the Oedipus complex."

"The what now?" asks a (slightly) let down Allen.

"Or is it the Electra complex? Whatever. Idea is, you're in love with Cross, your father figure, and want to get rid of the competition, which means that woman running the brothel. That 'face you can't make out' is probably you." Lavi gives him a winning smile. "Congrats, you won in your subconscious!"

Fuck.

"Mana was my father." he deftly attempts to curtail that train of thought (wait, this sounds more like encouraging it) while swallowing the beginnings of vomit in the back of his throat.

"Oh Allen." (_Damnit, not now! _The combined sensation of starting to get horny and starting to throw-up is an unpleasant thing indeed.) "Cross raised you too. And these feelings get a lot stronger right after death." (_Next time Timcampy can stay and hump the bastard's bloodstains for all I care!)_ "Don't worry, it'll probably fade when you start missing him less."

"I liked the Madam!" Allen almost shouts down Lavi.

"I know!" Lavi shouts back. He wins. "She was the only one out of Cross's flings that maintained any kind of a stable presence in your life. That's why she's the working mother substitute. "

Sadly, Allen knows this is not crazy. The Madam had given her daughter a western name, flawless English courtesy of various tutors, and clean white clothes to signal "not for touching" to the patrons... also, (she professed) undying hatred for Marian Cross. She had been outrageously pretty, like her mother, and clung to her like a barnacle before Cross peeled her off to get to the rest of the layers (also peeled off, in good time). Dark, cold eyes on Cross and a hero-worshipping crush on her mother, that was what Allen remembered about Anita.

That and how she'd snatch him away to the garden to rant about his master with all the English obscenities she knew. He joined in a lot. They rather liked each other, and she'd liked giving him sweets made out of lotus seeds and chestnuts, and it was fun.

(But the last time he'd saw her, her mother had been cold in the ground for not too long and Cross had worked his hand up her dress. So what did he know?)

"Oh Allen" Lenalee chides him afterwards, ushering him into her room with shooing, nurturing gestures like she's sheltering a sparrow from the rain. Allen certainly feels like one, and the fact that Lenalee's pretty, girlish _oh Allen _doesn't make him glow like it did a year ago (and has never sent pins and needles across his back) is not helping._ "_You're so silly. Of course you aren't in love with Cross."

(_Allen was being a _complete_ douche when he used Lenalee to test the waters: "Hey, Lenalee, would you like to date me?". The last vestige of hope hinging on "well, I SORTA like her, and she's got the right parts…" is straight-up executed by the relief Allen feels when the big-boobed, long-legged girl says "Sorry, no." Except she adds with a mild snap, "Please don't use me.") _

It had taken two months after _that _incident, but here Allen is, sopping in loser-dom and crawling back to Lenalee's all-forgiving doorstep and spilling his guts about how he is a loser.

"Allen, Lavi's smart but you don't have to believe everything he says." She scolds him. "Wanting to have sex with your father? You aren't _crazy_. What's so strange about imagining two people you find attractive in a situation like that? That's normal."

_Why the _HELL_ aren't you blushing? _Allen wants to ask her, but he's a little more excited that she might be onto something. He was pretty committed to being miserable and creeped out for the rest of the day though, so he makes one more stab at it:

"But I HATE Cross! Why…why…unless I'm like Anita, and I don't hate him anymore, and--" and he stops himself before he says "and he's going to stick a hand up my dress!". (But yeah, so what, if he's hysterically worried about something like that? Like, really hysterical, because obviously Cross is dead, but Allen still fears his necromancy skills and possible fancy to stick his undead hand up his ex-apprentice's non-existent dress.)

"Oh, Allen! You're so exasperating." Lenalee berates him. "Your mind makes a few cross-wires when you're sleeping. Remember my dreams about my brother? Lavi looks like Cross, doesn't he?"

Well, yes, actually. The same shaggy red hair. The same possibility of a gouged out eye. The same shit-eating grin.

"Really, Allen! If you're so crazy about him that you're thinking about people who _look _like him, doing things _with _him, _do_ something about it."

Why, yes. Yes, Lenalee, that makes a lot of sense. Pretty sane, right there.

…But you know, for someone who soaks in pure, unfiltered information as well as Lavi, he sure takes his sweet time letting the glaring "YOU WERE WRONG" penetrate.

"It's supposed to sound contrived." he persists stubbornly. "That doesn't make it _wrong_. The study of the human mind is a very complicated thing. Previously in this field there was this disconnect between the mind and the body, which was only recently resolved, but taking that former neglect into context, these conclusions are really quite credible once you--"

"I think I've been in love with you ever since I met you." Allen politely interrupts. "And I'd really like it if you spent the night in my room."

It turns out that Lavi _is_ like Cross. Meaning, he really knows his way around the bedroom. Allen had expected animals-during-mating season throwing around of combined weights and undignified grunting upon inappropriate surfaces. (He'd based that on his own level of patience, anyways. And he'd found that his inner voice didn't object). But Lavi only gives him the slightest brush of a tantalizing kiss before pushing him onto the bed with his fingertips.

He makes Allen watch as he begins to strip at the foot of the bed, slowly and deliberately. First pulling his shirt over his head, revealing the taut muscles on his chest and stomach. Then he reaches for his belt, slipping the leather strap out of the buckle. The slack lets his pants drop an inch, exposing his narrow hips, until Lavi undoes the button with a flick of his fingers and they fall to the floor. He nonchalantly steps out of them, hands already pushing the waistband of his underwear down his thighs.

"Oh, Allen." he sighs as he slides his hands down his naked body.

"Master." Allen blurts out impulsively. (Which means, "I am sorry I judged you for wanting to do filthy acts with people who are as damned good at this as _he_ is.")

"Wait, what?"

Lavi clocks him in the jaw.

_("So, what, I'm like a substitute?!"_

"_No! No, you see, Lenalee explained it to me, the reason why I had that dream was because you look like Cross--I mean, Cross looks like you--"_

"_You're telling Lenalee sexy stories about me and Cross? Oh, that is sick! Didn't you ask her out a few months ago? What the hell was that about?" _

"_What--no! I was only using her--!")_

"What…what the HELL was that?" Allen asks after they have the most mind-blowing make-up sex ever. "That was…this is…crazy!"

Lavi smirks from where's he's letting the sheet slip off his bare shoulder.

" 'Course . Whadja expect a relationship to be like?"

Epilogue: The Industrial Revolution (Spring again, when wage slaves are the least wretched.)

"What kind of crazy are you?" Kanda spits out at him and it's the most genuine disdain he's ever known. Oh, Kanda has moods alright, enough for some braver souls to make a little noise about a monthly curse.

("What? Fuck you all!" he'd snarled when someone had let that slip in a moment of overestimating his goodwill. "I have my curse twenty-four-seven, I'll bitch all I want!"

"Ewwww" goes Lavi. He gets booted off the parapet.)

But Allen can tell the difference between "you are being stupid" (Kanda's generous brand of easy cruelty) and "my fucking God, you _are_ so stupid you are a discredit to humanity" (…which every person has in his or her arsenal, so Allen decides that it's not particularly hurtful coming out of the most insanely mean person he knows.)

"I'll like who I like." Allen defends himself mildly out of obligation. He'd only told Kanda because he thought he needed to tell somebody. Kanda has pseudo-PMS, not a loose tongue.

So he'd thought, until he found Kanda pushing his boyfriend up against a wall.

"What the fuck." he grills Lavi afterwards, because Kanda had unattached himself from Lavi's face and disappeared down a corridor a second before Allen had relocated enough brainpower from reviewing the most agonizing medieval torture techniques he's ever heard about to remembering how to walk.

"Eh. Nothing." Lavi replies while paging through his freshly printed copy of Mandeville's "Fable of the Bees". "I only let him do it because it would be profitable for all parties involved."

Okay. Allen has come to terms with loving Lavi for who he is, and part of that is Lavi spinning straightforward situations to the tune of his latest ideological obsession. Allen had thought that he could humor his current hobby on the theories of developing industry and trade (Harmless, right? Tears-of-joy harmless compared to Lavi's eventful discovery of Freud.), but not if that reads as "it is permissible for you to be an outlet to Kanda's bi-curious needs."

"Explain." he says, figuring that it would put him the right until _after _hearing Lavi's overwrought reasoning to start calling him a skanky cheater.

"Oh Allen." (Allen has taken to saying "Stop doing that!" and Lavi has been responding "Doing _what?_") "He was just curious. And nervous. He's never done it before, you know. Kissed. He's getting pretty old for that. Imagine what he thought when he found out _you_ were getting lucky."

"Well…but…then, why did he just ask Lenalee or something?" Allen protests unhappily, consciously forgoing the need to examine the emphasis on "you".

"Because that would be too _real."_ Lavi rebuffs him a bit smugly.

"I still fail to see how this benefits anyone." Allen sulkily insists, making a mental note to warn Lenalee.

(Or not? That might keep Kanda's mouth from revisiting places he'd rather keep reserved for personal use. But he hasn't quite made up for being a jackass to her over Lavi, so he'd be really rotten to throw her to the evil-bastard-who-really-likes-you-but-occasionally-kisses-guys wolves. Hm. What was worse, accidentally leading her on to figure out whether his feelings for Lavi were genuine, or intentionally letting a homicidal maniac with homosexual tendencies work his way into her heart? But recently Allen has the impression that Lenalee can take care of herself. To the point she'd be Kanda's drill mistress on romance. …Why is the word "mistress" lingering?)

"Simple. In exchange for a little action, we have blackmail material worth Kanda not being an bitch to you anymore, plus him having to act like we aren't an abomination at the risk of hypocrisy, and everyone else having to do the same because if Kanda's okay with something that they're not, that makes them horrible people. All that for Kanda losing the stigma of being the un-kissed wonder." At Allen's not-quite-impressed expression, Lavi throws in " And the knowledge that Kanda is a _terrible_ kisser compared to you."

"Uh…really?" Allen as Lavi puts aside his book and winds his arms around his waist.

"Really." Lavi promises him. "There was no tongue. I only offered bare bones services because the commercially inexperienced have no concept of luxury. Even so, it wasn't a satisfying transaction, so I don't think I'll be exploring that market further." He nuzzles Allen's cheek and goes for his ear.

"Of course, it's common sense to save your _quality_ goods for trading partners who can offer the best returns." he whispers invitingly.

Author's Note:

Lavi is pulling that stuff out of his ass. Do not take it seriously. I read some shit in college and found it interesting enough to corrupt in fan fiction. LaviAllen is new for me. I think I like it mostly because I just didn't know what else I could say about LaviKanda.

Review, please? I'd like to hear how much of a freak I am.


End file.
